It’s walk, a hike with Him
Isaiah 11:2 The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord
Micah 3:8 But as for me, I am filled with power, with the spirit of the Lord, and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression, to Israel his sin.
John 3:6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit
John 14:16-17 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know hi, for he lives with you and will be in you.
John 16:8-15 When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because people do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned. I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own: he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will glorify me because it is from me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.
Acts 1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth
Romans 8:12-16 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again, rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.
2 Timothy 1:7 For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.
God is so impressive, so creative! He made man so we could be friends with Him, and live closely with Him. We fail often (almost always) because we are a selfish bunch, wanting our desires and not necessarily what He wants. Sometimes we (certainly I) jump the gun…He has said we can have something, BUT LATER. We don’t want to wait, so disobey, move out of His perfect timing, and therefore sin.
But when Eve and Adam sinned the first time, God already had a plan to redeem us and punish Satan. We know in the Old Testament God was in close contact with Noah, Abraham, and many others. The people did not fully understand, but knew God had a plan for deliverance. Yet think of all the times they were laid up as slaves–the Assyrian Empire, the Babylonian Empire, never mind the 400+ years they were in Egypt before Moses was sent–by the Spirit of God–to lead them to freedom and blessings. There are people who were temporarily touched by the Holy Spirit and gained power, conviction, and confidence to head out to do as God commanded.
Jesus is of course referred to as the Messiah to come, the Redeemer, and there are more than 100 prophetic verses about Him, and of course all were fulfilled once He came, including being born in Bethlehem, having a bright star lead the shepherds’ way to Him, and so forth. How wonderful that some poor, smelly, rather ‘homeless’ men were the ones chosen to be the first to see the star and knowing it was significant, followed it to the rough shed where our Savior lay. He came as a tiny babe, raised by two loving parents, a mother who had a secret—a child born not of man and woman union, but by the Holy Spirit. Her husband knew this and once reassured in a dream the marriage should proceed, he also kept the secret of his ‘son’s’ birth and raised him to learn carpentry skills and how to be a good and loving man.
Jesus always knew His true Father was God. He was always, even as a young boy, in touch with Him. He left his parents and friends’ caravan after the annual Passover Festival and remained in Jerusalem teaching in the temple. He stayed behind and listened to the priests in the Temple, learning and also teaching–which surprised all the priests, all those learned men. I believe, although his earthly parents knew He was the Messiah, sometimes it seemed hard for them to see that clearly. So often, He seemed like a healthy growing, NORMAL boy. But He was the Son of God, and when He stayed behind, found in the Temple, it was impressed on them more deeply that this child had a mission from His Father. Although they did not know what or when, they had to have some fear, some anxiety. Imagine being a twelve-year-old carpenter’s son and repeating the scriptures and explaining some to the older men.
Then we learn nothing about the following years, until He is about 30 years old. He began to gather hard working men according to Scripture, and they followed Him and listened attentively to all His teaching. They watched the way He lived, living what He taught. Jesus loved, healed, prayed, interpreted scripture, lived simply, and performed miracles. Jesus encouraged these men to change their manner of living–curb impatience, violence, anger, and learn and offer forgiveness, help and love to others. This Man who lived so simply, made such a wonderful impression on these few men, then to others He met who needed healing, forgiveness and teaching. He fed people the basics–food and then offered teaching, healing, and love. He reached out to others in all manner with love and openness and acceptance.
Being Jesus, God–the Son of God–He knew all the selfish, lying, conceited, vicious things people did to one another. He knew how easily our sinful natures reared and thrust to the forefront, causing sin–often not even recognizing it as sin–as we can so easily “justify” it. I believe most people try to raise their children to recognize being mean to others, hurting or taking another’s toys, displaying tantrums, striking out in anger to hurt another–sibling, friend, pet, parent–and explaining that is not ever acceptable behavior. But because we are all selfish creatures at our base, we need to be taught how to curb those sinful behaviors. That does not ameliorate the desires, it only teaches how to curb them, how to modulate and maintain good social behavior. The inborn desire is to feed ourselves with what we want; and that leads to us sinning. We continuously want our desires fulfilled, and if we want to not be sinning and to be most pleasing to God, the trinity, we need to follow the inspired words of God and not live in our selfish, self-centered world.
Once we meet Jesus, we want to be pleasing to Him. Yet our base nature is sinful–selfish, impatient, arrogant, snide, pompous at times–not at all the representatives God is looking for. But that is why, one of the reasons, we have the Bible. It explains what is disobedience, what sin can do in our lives, and eventually in our community–Jerusalem and Israel being taken captive, enslaved at different times, killed, tortured and so forth throughout the different ages. Humans sin. We may grow toward improving, but we still fall short–we still sin.
My path certainly feels upward and strewn with stones, mostly big, but difficult to walk around. (Not just because I am clumsy, but there are different areas where it seems I sin more regularly than other times. But sin is sin–it is just me who feels there are some sins (large stones) I have to climb over and find more difficult than some of the other rocks.) I can say I see growth and improvement over the years, but certainly I see I am still basically selfish and sinful.
Yet, Your grace and mercy continue to reassure me of Your love, guidance, and the assurance I will see You face to face in eternity. Lord, I am so very thankful that you are leading me and guiding my steps living and writing ‘mybellaviews.’
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